This invention relates to an electronic cash register.
The electronic cash register is usually used in a shop, restaurant, department store or other stores for registering sales of commodities or goods sold to a customer.
A conventional one of the electronic cash register comprises a computer system comprising a storage such as a random access memory (RAM) and a read only memory (ROM), an input unit such as a keyboard and/or a bar-code reader, a processing unit, and a monitor display.
When selling commodities to a customer or accepting order of commodities from a customer, an operator operates the keyboard or the bar-code reader to input data (name and number) of commodities sold or ordered.
In the present description and claims accompanied thereto, the terms xe2x80x9ccommodities soldxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9ccommodities orderedxe2x80x9d, xe2x80x9csold commoditiesxe2x80x9d and xe2x80x9cordered commoditiesxe2x80x9d should be understood to have same meanings. The terms refer to the commodities which the customer buys and receives by paying money.
The processing unit calculates a total price value of the commodities sold using price data stored in the storage and stores, as sales data, the data of commodities sold and the total price value in the storage. The input data of the commodities sold, a price of each item of the commodities sold, and the total price values are displayed on the monitor display. Thus, the customer and the operator can inspect of them.
The sales data stored in the storage can be used for management of the sales and inventory.
In some stores, it is sometimes performed to recommend specific commodities to customers so as to decrease stock of the specific commodities and/or increase their sales. Thus, the operator recommends a particular customer to buy the specific commodities, while handling the electronic cash register to input data of the commodities ordered by the particular. However, it is difficult to remember a list of predetermined commodities to be recommended to customers and to recommend the commodities to be recommended without erroneously recommending commodities which the particular customer has just ordered.
Therefore, it is an object of this invention to provide a method for selecting, by use of an electronic cash register, recommendation commodities from a list of predetermined commodities to be recommended to customers when handling the electronic cash register to register commodities bought by a particular customer into the electronic cash register.
It is another object of this invention to provide an electronic cash register which can perform the method described above.
According to this invention, there is provided a method for selecting recommendation commodities to a customer by use of an electronic cash register which is operated when selling commodities to the customer to register sales of the commodities sold. The method comprises:
previously storing into the electronic cash register a list of predetermined commodities to be recommended;
when registering the sales of commodities sold to the customer, making the electronic cash register perform operations of:
(1) comparing the commodities sold with the list of the predetermined commodities to select, as a selected item, one of the predetermined commodities which is different from the commodities sold; and
(2) indicating the selected item;
then recommending, as recommendation commodities, the selected item to the customer.
In a preferred embodiment, the list may contains different priority orders which are previously assigned to the predetermined commodities, respectively. Thus, in operation (1), the predetermined commodities are compared one after another according to the priority orders with the commodities sold. That one of the predetermined commodities which is firstly found out different from the commodities sold is selected as a first selected one. And, in operation (2), the first selected one is indicated as the selected item.
The method may further comprise making the electronic cash register perform operations of: (3) continuing the operation (1) after indication of the selected item, to select, as a subsequently selected one, another of the predetermined commodities which is subsequently found out different from the commodities sold; and (4) indicating the subsequently selected one as the selected item.
Operations (3) and (4) are repeated by a predetermined number of times to recommend a number of recommendation commodities to the customer.
According to this invention, an electronic cash register which can perform the above mentioned method is also provided, which comprises:
a storage for storing a list of predetermined commodities to be recommended to customers;
an inputting device for inputting ordered commodities when selling the ordered commodities to a particular customer;
an extracting device for extracting, as recommendation commodities, that items in the predetermined commodities in the list which are different from the ordered commodities; and
a displaying device for displaying the recommendation commodities.
In an aspect of this invention, the list contains recommendation priority orders of the predetermined commodities. The extracting device compares the predetermined commodities one after another according to the priority orders with the ordered commodities to sequentially select items, as the recommendation commodities of the predetermined commodities which are different from the ordered commodities.
The storage further stores a predetermined number which prescribes the maximum number of commodities. Thus, the extracting device extracts the predetermined number of recommendation commodities.